Dean Smith - Confirmed

[algy]

For those calling for his head

Pssst. Nobody is.

There are a number who seem to be questioning whether Smith is the right man for the job though. And others suggesting he's inept and out of his depth.

We're 9th. Ahead of Arsenal, 2 points and a game on hand behind last season's runaway champions and 4 points and a game in hand behind Spuds.

It's massive progress in such a short space of time. Smith is the best opportunity and breath of fresh air this club has had in decades. He'll get things wrong, and the players will too, they know when it's not good enough and are honest about it. They learn too.

Every big name manager started somewhere. Why not grow our own?

I'd also add that, with the exception of Neil Taylor & Elmo, this is the first time in ages where you look at our squad and think that we'd get pretty much what we paid (or more) for most of the players who're maybe under consideration for being moved on this summer.  Conor, AEG, Trez, Marv, ... you'd expect to get something like what we paid for each of those.  Rather than having players like Fat Ross or Lansbury who we end up having to pay other people to have them.

[Drummond]

Really good point.

[kipeye]

I certainly don't want to go back to 'Honest lads', We go again' and all the other crap we have had to put up with for decades. I am sure there are City supporters calling for Pep's head. It happens everywhere. Sadly, all we do by mentioning them is give the false impression it is a popular opinion.

[Drummond]

I certainly don't want to go back to 'Honest lads', We go again' and all the other crap we have had to put up with for decades. I am sure there are City supporters calling for Pep's head. It happens everywhere. Sadly, all we do by mentioning them is give the false impression it is a popular opinion.

I thought Guardiola's comments about Wilder were interesting the other day. "If he would be here, he would fight to be champion. If I was in Sheffield maybe I'd fight not to be relegated."

I'm sure he'd be thinking similar of us as to where we are, though we're overachieving I think.

[ChicagoLion]

We are still very much a team in the making and poor runs of form are quite often a sign of this. I have no doubts that the team will continue to move forward with a couple of positive purchases in the summer and we will steadily build over the next few years. Whilst it’s frustrating seeing performances like this, we are safely in mid-table and are likely to be up and down.  I am sure that Dean Smith sees exactly what we see and will improve talent in the squad going forward.

Sorry I don’t agree with any of that
We are not a team in the making we are a team that relies on Grealish

Without him we are a bottom half side
Maybe not bottom three but bottom six probably

Without Grealish we are no better than Newcastle

Some of you guys that think we are progressing in the right direction and Smith has it all under control are going to get a very big surprise if Grealish leaves
And let’s face it why should the best in England stay and play with Players who aren’t good enough to lace his boots

we are not progressing into a very good side we can look a very good side because we have one of the best players in the world
Yes we will get wins without him the same way as Sheffield United Newcastle and all the other teams in the bottom half get a few wins

But we are very ordinary bang average slow no creativity with literally zero ideas from management side
Yes I might get accused of overreacting and my post being embarrassing but what’s more embarrassing is that shower of shit that I saw last night trying to play football
Absolute garbage on and off the pitch

Sorry for the embarrassing post Dave but I don’t give a shit

I haven't seen any recent off with his head posts.

The nearest to blasphemy is John e post above.

[Pat Mustard]

What are we aiming for next year? More consolidation or winning stuff?  If the latter we need to bring in 3 or 4 players who would improve any top 6 teams first 11.  With that kind of squad, any decent manager (Smith included) would have a great chance to make some history of the positive kind!!

If we’re not ‘going for it’ now, then when?

You think Jack  Konsa Mings are hanging around for that?
If Jack goes then we will struggle to keep the best of this team together, lots of money coming in but at best mid table mediocrity for ever.
I think next season is make or break, as Riigadon says if not now when.

This is precisely the mentality we've needed to change for a very long time.  Players will always leave, get old, get injured or lose form - what needs to happen is that within the structure of the club we are able to replace these players with better ones when they go.  The work we are doing on buying up highly rated youth prospects is promising, and our recruitment strategy with Lange is light years ahead of anything we've had in the past.

Obviously we don't want to lose any of our best players right now, but it wouldn't necessarily be the end of the world and mean we are mired in mid-table mediocrity or worse forever.  Look at the players Leicester have lost in the years since they won the league, but are now comfortably ensconced in the top 6 - that's the kind of model we need to follow.

[ChicagoLion]

What are we aiming for next year? More consolidation or winning stuff?  If the latter we need to bring in 3 or 4 players who would improve any top 6 teams first 11.  With that kind of squad, any decent manager (Smith included) would have a great chance to make some history of the positive kind!!

If we’re not ‘going for it’ now, then when?

You think Jack  Konsa Mings are hanging around for that?
If Jack goes then we will struggle to keep the best of this team together, lots of money coming in but at best mid table mediocrity for ever.
I think next season is make or break, as Riigadon says if not now when.

This is precisely the mentality we've needed to change for a very long time.  Players will always leave, get old, get injured or lose form - what needs to happen is that within the structure of the club we are able to replace these players with better ones when they go.  The work we are doing on buying up highly rated youth prospects is promising, and our recruitment strategy with Lange is light years ahead of anything we've had in the past.

Obviously we don't want to lose any of our best players right now, but it wouldn't necessarily be the end of the world and mean we are mired in mid-table mediocrity or worse forever.  Look at the players Leicester have lost in the years since they won the league, but are now comfortably ensconced in the top 6 - that's the kind of model we need to follow.

If everybody could do a Leicester they would and they have been working on this for several years now.
Its like saying the best way to invest in the stock market is to buy low sell high.
It comes down to do you believe that building the team around Jack and co is more likely to get us to a Top 6 team than receiving the money to build again (doing a Leicester). I think the answer is pretty obvious.

[Mister E]

What are we aiming for next year? More consolidation or winning stuff?  If the latter we need to bring in 3 or 4 players who would improve any top 6 teams first 11.  With that kind of squad, any decent manager (Smith included) would have a great chance to make some history of the positive kind!!

If we’re not ‘going for it’ now, then when?

You think Jack  Konsa Mings are hanging around for that?
If Jack goes then we will struggle to keep the best of this team together, lots of money coming in but at best mid table mediocrity for ever.
I think next season is make or break, as Riigadon says if not now when.

This is precisely the mentality we've needed to change for a very long time.  Players will always leave, get old, get injured or lose form - what needs to happen is that within the structure of the club we are able to replace these players with better ones when they go.  The work we are doing on buying up highly rated youth prospects is promising, and our recruitment strategy with Lange is light years ahead of anything we've had in the past.

Obviously we don't want to lose any of our best players right now, but it wouldn't necessarily be the end of the world and mean we are mired in mid-table mediocrity or worse forever.  Look at the players Leicester have lost in the years since they won the league, but are now comfortably ensconced in the top 6 - that's the kind of model we need to follow.

If everybody could do a Leicester they would and they have been working on this for several years now.
Its like saying the best way to invest in the stock market is to buy low sell high.
It comes down to do you believe that building the team around Jack and co is more likely to get us to a Top 6 team than receiving the money to build again (doing a Leicester). I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Building a team around some of the current stars has to be the only way - the likes of JG, Konsa, Cash, Watkins and Martinez together is an opportunity that doesn't come around very often. More importantly, I'm sure the club recognise that and will invest accordingly.

[Pat Mustard]

What are we aiming for next year? More consolidation or winning stuff?  If the latter we need to bring in 3 or 4 players who would improve any top 6 teams first 11.  With that kind of squad, any decent manager (Smith included) would have a great chance to make some history of the positive kind!!

If we’re not ‘going for it’ now, then when?

You think Jack  Konsa Mings are hanging around for that?
If Jack goes then we will struggle to keep the best of this team together, lots of money coming in but at best mid table mediocrity for ever.
I think next season is make or break, as Riigadon says if not now when.

This is precisely the mentality we've needed to change for a very long time.  Players will always leave, get old, get injured or lose form - what needs to happen is that within the structure of the club we are able to replace these players with better ones when they go.  The work we are doing on buying up highly rated youth prospects is promising, and our recruitment strategy with Lange is light years ahead of anything we've had in the past.

Obviously we don't want to lose any of our best players right now, but it wouldn't necessarily be the end of the world and mean we are mired in mid-table mediocrity or worse forever.  Look at the players Leicester have lost in the years since they won the league, but are now comfortably ensconced in the top 6 - that's the kind of model we need to follow.

If everybody could do a Leicester they would and they have been working on this for several years now.
Its like saying the best way to invest in the stock market is to buy low sell high.
It comes down to do you believe that building the team around Jack and co is more likely to get us to a Top 6 team than receiving the money to build again (doing a Leicester). I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Building a team around some of the current stars has to be the only way - the likes of JG, Konsa, Cash, Watkins and Martinez together is an opportunity that doesn't come around very often. More importantly, I'm sure the club recognise that and will invest accordingly.

I'm not saying that we want to sell our best players, and that we shouldn't build on what we have.  What I am saying, though, is that we can't keep looking at what we have now and think this is our only chance to move forward as this is is precisely the kind of approach that has got us into trouble in the past. 

Over the last 30 years we have focussed so much on the here and now that when it hasn't happened immediately we have had to start again from scratch.  We have had top class players in our team on lots of occasions (going back to Dwight Yorke, Mark Bosnich, Ugo and Southgate, Ashley Young, James Milner, Benteke, Delph etc.), but have then spent over the odds on surrounding them with decent, but not great, players with little to no resale value.  We then end up losing the good players anyway, and are left with the rest.

What Leicester have done is the perfect example of how you can lose good players but keep moving forward.  In an ideal world I am positive that they would have preferred to keep Mahrez, Kante, Chilwell etc, but they have planned for the loss of these players should they happen and still improved as a club.  With the owners, management and structure we now have in place why shouldn't we be able to do the same?

[SoccerHQ]

What are we aiming for next year? More consolidation or winning stuff?  If the latter we need to bring in 3 or 4 players who would improve any top 6 teams first 11.  With that kind of squad, any decent manager (Smith included) would have a great chance to make some history of the positive kind!!

If we’re not ‘going for it’ now, then when?

This season has turned into a sudden struggle to just finish top 10 now so shows we still have loads to learn in managing a 38 game season (particularly as for differing reasons we've barely played any cup games this season).

Hopefully we will finish 10th at least so a top half finish can't just be dismissed as o.k, it's pretty good for where we are in the rebuild.

Next season I'd say 7th or 8th should be realistic target and a really good cup run. Top 6 too much too soon unless we sign really well in key positions e.g. right winger and a really good striker coming in.

[ChicagoLion]

So you think that we can just do a Leicester? How long do you suggest we wait to have create a Team based on the Leicester model?
We have a chance next season to push for Top 6  if we do enough to convince Jack that we have ambitions now based on the strength we have, because if we can convince Jack then retaining and acquiring the players we need is going to be an awful lot easier.

[john e]

For those calling for his head

Pssst. Nobody is.

There are a number who seem to be questioning whether Smith is the right man for the job though. And others suggesting he's inept and out of his depth.

We're 9th. Ahead of Arsenal, 2 points and a game on hand behind last season's runaway champions and 4 points and a game in hand behind Spuds.

It's massive progress in such a short space of time. Smith is the best opportunity and breath of fresh air this club has had in decades. He'll get things wrong, and the players will too, they know when it's not good enough and are honest about it. They learn too.

Every big name manager started somewhere. Why not grow our own?

i think that's a good point and and i think your sort of both right
no one has called for his head but people have questioned his ability to take us higher
when i say people i really mean me and one or two others

as Chicago says i'm probably the closest so far to that heresy

every post i make re Villa or Smith is with the view that with the new owners and renewed ambition we need to be looking at being a top 6/4 side on a regular basis
yes i know where we were two years ago but i never accepted that was where we should have been and through inept ownership and managers we fell to a position that was totally avoidable

do i think Smith should go
No of course not, you cant sack a manager that's done what he's done in the last couple of seasons that would be ridiculous

do i think Smith can deliver a top 6 side even a top 4 side
Yes but only if we keep Grealish
and that's the key as iv'e always said, we must keep him and the best way of doing that is European football because it would be a tragedy if Grealish did not perform at the highest level of Domestic and European football

do i think Smith can deliver a top 6/4 side without Grealish
this is where it gets to that heresy thing, because if i'm honest i don't think he can
so there i've said it, that's doesn't mean i want him gone but it does mean i probably think he's less capable than many of you others on here

Grealish is the key as iv'e said many times, he's the reason we are where we are, he makes everyone look better than what they really are both players and managment

i might be wrong we might lose Grealish and with the money Smith puts together a top team and goes on to challenge
personally i think if we lose Grealish at the end of the season (not saying we will) Smith will be gone by the end of next year
but that's just pure conjecture

in another scenario we keep Grealish and bring in 2/3 top players to support him and bang we are challenging ( this is obviously the one i want to happen)

i didn't think Konsa was good enough at the start of this season so i got that one wrong
its a football forum we say are piece and sometimes we get it right and sometimes wrong
end of the day we have to be honest and say what we think, and time will be the judge

but remember i spent two years arguing on here with Drum, Clampy, Adds and many others about Bruce
i said he was no where good enough for us and taking us nowhere
you all argued that he was the man and we should be sticking with him
so forgive me if i think your judgement of managers is fatally flawed , but i do

so it all boils down to Grealish for me not Smith
certainly at this moment in our development

i'm still very hopeful that with a returning Grealish we can still make it into the Europa spots
i'm not looking down i'm still looking up and staying positive



 

[Pat Mustard]

So you think that we can just do a Leicester? How long do you suggest we wait to have create a Team based on the Leicester model?
We have a chance next season to push for Top 6  if we do enough to convince Jack that we have ambitions now based on the strength we have, because if we can convince Jack then retaining and acquiring the players we need is going to be an awful lot easier.

How long did it take Leicester do 'a Leicester'?  I seem to recall they got promoted, almost went down, next season won the League against any reasonable expectation, and since then have maintained a pretty balanced approach to building a squad and a club despite losing world-class players in the likes of Kante and Mahrez.  Whilst we might not be winning the league in the next few years, we aren't that far behind them now and have plenty of advantages over them in the longer-term.  I'd rather build something sustainable than go shit or bust like we have in the past and end up in the same place we spent most of the 2010's.

[ChicagoLion]

So you think that we can just do a Leicester? How long do you suggest we wait to have create a Team based on the Leicester model?
We have a chance next season to push for Top 6  if we do enough to convince Jack that we have ambitions now based on the strength we have, because if we can convince Jack then retaining and acquiring the players we need is going to be an awful lot easier.

How long did it take Leicester do 'a Leicester'?  I seem to recall they got promoted, almost went down, next season won the League against any reasonable expectation, and since then have maintained a pretty balanced approach to building a squad and a club despite losing world-class players in the likes of Kante and Mahrez.  Whilst we might not be winning the league in the next few years, we aren't that far behind them now and have plenty of advantages over them in the longer-term.  I'd rather build something sustainable than go shit or bust like we have in the past and end up in the same place we spent most of the 2010's.

So we do a Leicester or Shit or Bust?
Genius

[Drummond]

For those calling for his head

Pssst. Nobody is.

There are a number who seem to be questioning whether Smith is the right man for the job though. And others suggesting he's inept and out of his depth.

We're 9th. Ahead of Arsenal, 2 points and a game on hand behind last season's runaway champions and 4 points and a game in hand behind Spuds.

It's massive progress in such a short space of time. Smith is the best opportunity and breath of fresh air this club has had in decades. He'll get things wrong, and the players will too, they know when it's not good enough and are honest about it. They learn too.

Every big name manager started somewhere. Why not grow our own?

i think that's a good point and and i think your sort of both right
no one has called for his head but people have questioned his ability to take us higher
when i say people i really mean me and one or two others

as Chicago says i'm probably the closest so far to that heresy

every post i make re Villa or Smith is with the view that with the new owners and renewed ambition we need to be looking at being a top 6/4 side on a regular basis
yes i know where we were two years ago but i never accepted that was where we should have been and through inept ownership and managers we fell to a position that was totally avoidable

do i think Smith should go
No of course not, you cant sack a manager that's done what he's done in the last couple of seasons that would be ridiculous

do i think Smith can deliver a top 6 side even a top 4 side
Yes but only if we keep Grealish
and that's the key as iv'e always said, we must keep him and the best way of doing that is European football because it would be a tragedy if Grealish did not perform at the highest level of Domestic and European football

do i think Smith can deliver a top 6/4 side without Grealish
this is where it gets to that heresy thing, because if i'm honest i don't think he can
so there i've said it, that's doesn't mean i want him gone but it does mean i probably think he's less capable than many of you others on here

Grealish is the key as iv'e said many times, he's the reason we are where we are, he makes everyone look better than what they really are both players and managment

i might be wrong we might lose Grealish and with the money Smith puts together a top team and goes on to challenge
personally i think if we lose Grealish at the end of the season (not saying we will) Smith will be gone by the end of next year
but that's just pure conjecture

in another scenario we keep Grealish and bring in 2/3 top players to support him and bang we are challenging ( this is obviously the one i want to happen)

i didn't think Konsa was good enough at the start of this season so i got that one wrong
its a football forum we say are piece and sometimes we get it right and sometimes wrong
end of the day we have to be honest and say what we think, and time will be the judge

but remember i spent two years arguing on here with Drum, Clampy, Adds and many others about Bruce
i said he was no where good enough for us and taking us nowhere
you all argued that he was the man and we should be sticking with him
so forgive me if i think your judgement of managers is fatally flawed , but i do

so it all boils down to Grealish for me not Smith
certainly at this moment in our development

i'm still very hopeful that with a returning Grealish we can still make it into the Europa spots
i'm not looking down i'm still looking up and staying positive

I've defended managers before because generally I think they deserve a chance to get it right. With regards to Smith, I think, as I said before, that he's the best shot we've had for decades. He's learning, and improving. Who was the last manager to do that here?